Tenacious Resins and Residues: Oil Propaganda in Architectural Digest During the Energy Crises of the 1970s

Architectural Digest was first published in 1920 by John C. Brasfield, a California-based publisher. In 1933, the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast and has since become a popular design magazine, particularly in North America, known for its visually vibrant and abundant advertisements. Car advertisements are among the most recurring ads featured in the magazine. Through an archival investigation of Architectural Digest magazines from 1973 to 1983, I investigate how, if at all, car advertisements in the magazine reflected the 1973 and 1979 oil crises. The 1979 global energy crisis was a period of high energy prices and supply shortages that occurred in the wake of the Iranian Revolution and lasted until about 1983. The crisis was triggered by a number of factors that went all the way back to October of 1973 and the Arab-Israeli war which itself triggered the energy crisis of that year, lasting until at least 1976. I situate this study in Saskatchewan and Alberta, which is where the magazines I investigate physically originated. Thinking with and through these magazines, I read them and their car advertisements to unlearn the way in which they maintain false good life fantasies, and socially and environmentally unjust narratives.